


my first kiss (went a little like this)

by doctorkaitlyn



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, Implied Bella Milonkovic/Ryan Kane, Past Rose/Lukas Waldenbeck, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8820880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: Rose has never really thought about what kissing a girl would be like.
Bella Milonkovic is about to change that. 
(or, the one where Bella isn't dead, and Rose discovers that kissing girls is something she should really do more often.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> to elaborate on the tags: Bella's relationship with Ryan Kane is implied and hinted at, but not talked about in any explicit detail, and definitely not glamorized. 
> 
> (seriously, if someone wants to write a fic about all the women in this show ganging up to throw Ryan in the river, I'll throw money at you.)
> 
> title adapted from [My First Kiss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYC2FUutdKA) by 3OH!3 (ft. Kesha).

Rose hears the girl coming long before she actually sees her.

Even with her headphones blasting music into her ears, she can still hear something crashing through the trees nearby. She slowly plucks one earbud out and swivels around, away from the lake, towards the direction of the noise. It's all too possible that it's just a deer wandering around. Alternatively, it might be some idiots from her school and, if that's the case, she's going to tell them to turn right around and leave. This spot, the carved-up picnic table at the edge of the lake, is _hers_ , one of the only places in town where she can go and just relax and let her mind go quiet, and she's not going to give it up without a fight. 

The rustling only grows louder, and she can see what is very clearly a someone, not a something, approaching the picnic table, seemingly stepping on every twig in their path. They weave from side to side, almost colliding with multiple trees, until they eventually stumble into the small clearing that surrounds the picnic table, swaying on their feet. The person turns out to be a girl that Rose vaguely recognizes from around town, although she's positive that she doesn't go to Red Hook High.

Whoever she is, it's only the way that she looks that stops Rose from telling her to leave. There's watery streaks of black mascara stretching down her flushed cheeks, and there's a definite sway in her step, probably due to the bottle of vodka that her red-tipped fingers are wrapped around.

"Who are you?" the girl asks, crossing the small clearing and sitting down heavily on the lower level of the picnic table. Her head rolls loosely on her shoulders as she turns to look at Rose, raising the vodka bottle back to her lips. 

"Rose. Who are you?" she replies, pulling her other headphone from her ear. The girl giggles slightly, for no reason Rose can discern, and wipes at a stray drop of alcohol falling from her mouth. There's faded smears of red lipstick surrounding her full lips, and smudges of it decorate the mouth of the vodka bottle. 

"Bella," the girl answers quietly, dropping her head back against the picnic table, inches away from Rose's crossed legs. Her long, red-tipped hair is splayed across the scarred table, and Rose can smell perfume (expensive, she thinks) clinging to the other girl's skin. It's possible that maybe this is just the girl's everyday style, but between her tight dress and makeup and the bottle clutched loosely in her hands, Rose has a feeling that Bella got all dolled up for a date that crashed and burned. 

(Lord knows that Rose can relate to _that_ situation.) 

"Some guy leave you hanging?" she asks, closing the textbook sitting in her lap. Bella giggles again, but the sound is sadder this time, edged with an distinct fury that's sharp as barbed wire. 

"Something kinda like that," she says, taking another deep swig from the bottle. When she lowers it, she holds it in Rose's direction and, after only a moment, Rose takes it. A free drink _is_ a free drink, after all. 

The vodka burns a path straight down her throat and into her stomach, and she can't help but cough. Bella just grins at her as she takes the bottle back. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Rose asks. "About the guy, I mean. I've got experience with assholes." She doesn't really know why she's reaching out to this mysterious girl who just appeared out of the woods, but before she can think about possibly retracting the offer, Bella takes her up on it. 

"He's not really an asshole," she sighs, twisting around so that she's facing Rose. "He's just afraid of my dad."

"Should he be?"

"Maybe." Bella smiles slightly. "But actually, I don't really wanna talk about him. The guy, I mean. Fuck him." Bella doesn't sound convinced by her own words, but Rose doesn't bother pointing that out. It isn't her problem. 

"How do you know about this place?" she asks instead, taking the bottle when Bella passes it back to her. The vodka seems to burn a little less this time, but she thinks that might just be because she's getting back into the swing of things. 

"My dad used to bring me here a lot, when I was younger," Bella replies, leaning forward and resting her chin on her crossed arms. "Before he shipped me off to school. You?" 

"Just found it one day, going for a walk. It's my favorite place in town."

"Mine too." Bella sighs wistfully as she takes the rapidly emptying bottle back, but she doesn't take another swig from it. She just sets it beside her on the picnic table's seat and keeps staring out at the calm lake. She doesn't speak again for a long time, and Rose starts to think about doing some more studying. 

Her fingers have just barely brushed the cover of her textbook when Bella opens her mouth again. 

"Do you go to school in Red Hook?"

&.

After that, the pauses in their conversations are few and far between. 

Bella joins her on the top of the picnic table, and they talk for hours about school, music, the last movies they saw. While Bella said that she didn't want to talk about her boyfriend, details still find their way into their conversation. Apparently he's older (how much older, she doesn't say), has some kind of job where he's constantly on the road, and owns a house somewhere upstate. He'd asked her to run away from her boarding school so that he could pick her up and take her out to dinner, but at the last minute, when she'd already been sitting in the park in the center of Tivoli with freshly dyed hair, he'd texted her and cancelled, with no explanation. 

Bella may say that he's not an asshole but frankly, Rose thinks that's exactly what he sounds like. 

In return, she lets some details about Lukas slip; not a lot, although, truthfully, there's not really a lot she _can_ say about him. They'd only been together a few months and, most days, Rose hadn't seen him outside of school. He'd always had some kind of excuse, said that he had to practice, or shoot videos for his YouTube channel. Even when they _were_ together, he'd always seemed distracted, did anything possible to avoid touching her for any length of time. 

And then he'd simply broken up with her, right at her locker, and walked away. 

Not exactly a timeless love story. But Bella listens to her anyways, nods along with wide eyes surrounded by smeared makeup, and when Rose decides that she's said all she cares to, Bella passes her the vodka bottle and pats her knee. 

"I think you can do better than him," she says with a small smile. 

"Could say the same thing about you," Rose points out, taking an almost imperceptible swig from the almost empty bottle. Bella hasn't stopped drinking, but she's definitely slowed down, which Rose is thankful for; looking after someone puking their guts out definitely isn't her idea of fun, and if something worse happened, if Bella passed out, she doesn't know how long it would take paramedics to find their way to them. 

"Maybe," Bella replies quietly, sounding the furthest thing from convinced. 

They talk long enough for the sun to drop below the horizon, taking the warmth of the day with it. By the time Bella sets the empty bottle down on the picnic table with a clunk, it's so dark that Rose can just barely make out the other girl's outline; there's only a sliver of moon up above, and the dim light that it _does_ throw off just barely seeps through the canopy of trees above. While Rose's sweater was warm enough for daytime hours, it's utterly useless at blocking out the cool breeze running through the trees, and even with vodka warming her stomach, goosebumps are pushing up through her skin. 

She'd like to stay longer. It's been a long time she was able to talk to someone so freely, without having to worry about it getting spread around school. But frankly, she's cold and a little tipsy, and her ass is numb from sitting on the picnic table for so long. 

"I need to leave soon," she says, hiccuping slightly. "My parents might have already called the sheriff on me." 

"Yeah, I'm sure the school has already told my dad I ran away," Bella says, sighing deeply. "He'll find me soon enough." 

"Are you going to be okay overnight?" Bella nods, fiddling with the zipper on her jacket. 

"I know a few other places that I can hide for awhile." Abruptly, she swivels around so that she's facing Rose head-on, hands loosely clasped in her lap. "Can I ask you something before you go?" 

"Sure," Rose replies, swiveling as well (and accidentally knocking her textbook to the ground, but it's battered enough as it is; a little dirt won't hurt it.) Bella pauses for a moment, and Rose really wishes that there was more light in the clearing, so that she could make some kind of attempt at guessing what Bella is about to ask her. 

What finally comes from Bella's lips is something that Rose _definitely_ wouldn't have guessed.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" It comes out hushed, nearly a whisper, but the way Bella giggles at the end of the sentence makes Rose think that she's not exactly ashamed of asking the question. 

"What? No, never," Rose blurts. "Why, have you?" She can just barely make out the outline of Bella's shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. 

"A few times, at school. It's not really a big deal."

"It'd be a big deal here." Tivoli's not exactly a haven of tolerance; there are a few older women who live together as partners out on some of the farms, and they're accepted as part of the community, but when it comes to their school, spreading a rumor that someone is gay is one of the quickest ways to ruin someone's entire year. 

It's not something Rose has ever really thought about for herself. She's never thought about kissing one of her friends, never even considered the possibility in an objective sense. But the casual way in which Bella brings it up, the fact that she brings it up at _all_... 

Well, Rose is curious. 

Besides, it's not like anyone is going to find out.

"Did you like it?" she asks, thankful for the darkness, which seems to make it easier to actually speak the words. 

"Like what? The kissing?" Bella asks, and Rose nods. "I mean, yeah. It was nice. Soft, too." She cranes forward, until Rose can make out the swoop of Bella's hair over her cheeks. "Why? Do you want to try it?" 

"You have a boyfriend," Rose retorts and Bella laughs, the sound almost musical, like wind chimes.

"I _might_ have a boyfriend," she replies, pulling her phone from her pocket and tapping the screen, until the harsh glow illuminates her face. "I've been checking all night, and he hasn't called or texted me once. Besides, it's not like we're having sex. It's just a kiss." Rose's teeth slip into her bottom lip and she twists her head to look out at the dark expanse of the lake as she ponders over her contradicting thoughts. Despite the strength of her curiosity, she's pretty sure that this is a terrible idea. 

She still finds herself turning back to Bella and shifting a little closer, until their knees bump together. 

"Fine. But it has to be quick. I really need to go home."

"Don't worry. I'll be fast." Rose has barely finished processing what Bella said before Bella leans forward and presses her lips against Rose's. Her lips part slightly from the surprise and Bella takes advantage of it, adjusting her mouth until both of her lips are curled around Rose's bottom one. 

She wasn't lying about it being soft. The pressure behind Bella's lips is firm, but the texture of her lips is like velvet. She tastes like sharp vodka and lipstick, and it's a combination that works far better than it should. There's no alarm bells going off in Rose's head, nothing screaming that she needs to pull away _now_ , and she decides to test that a little by actually leaning into the kiss, parting her lips a little further. 

There's still no alarms. The tip of Bella's tongue gently brushes against her bottom lip, more of a caress than anything, and Rose actually finds herself biting back a soft sound. 

Before she can ponder what to do next, Bella pulls back and laughs quietly. 

"There, was that so bad?" she asks. Rose shakes her head. When she absently licks at her lips, her tongue comes back with Bella's taste all over it. 

"No. Definitely not," she murmurs, forcing herself to slide off the picnic table and start gathering up her things. If she doesn't move soon, she doesn't trust herself to not ask for another kiss.

Once she has her textbooks and iPod tucked in her backpack, she turns back toward the table, towards Bella's silhouette, which hasn't moved an inch. 

"Good luck with your boyfriend," she says. 

"Thanks. I might need it." Bella slides off the table and the glow of her phone pierces the darkness of the clearing, so bright that Rose has to squint. Surprisingly, she places her phone directly in Rose's palm. 

"Wanna give me your number? I might need to vent some more later." 

Rose's mind proclaims, very loudly, that this is the second bad idea of the night, but she still does what Bella asks. She quickly types her number in, adding the rose emoji beside her name. When Bella takes her phone back, Rose sees her face light up with a grin in the washed out light from the phone. 

"Thanks," she says. "Maybe, if Ryan decides to keep being an asshole, we can hang out again. Maybe kiss some more." There's a lilt of humor in her voice, but when Rose replies, she's nothing less than completely serious.

"Okay," she says, swallowing over the lump in her throat. "That'd be cool."

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
